The Homeside section, with clothing and shoes, is a feature of the Kroger Marketplace store that will open this week in the Tomball area.

The Homeside section, with clothing and shoes, is a feature of the Kroger Marketplace store that will open this week in the Tomball area.

Photo: Jerry Baker, Freelance

In new Kroger, produce shares space with clothes

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Fashionably attired mannequins draw shoppers' attention to scarves, blouses and sandals on display near the dairy section. A white-coated grocery clerk with a hair net and apron readies the gluten-free snack cooler, while co-workers on a nearby aisle steam-iron wrinkles out of men's short-sleeve shirts.

The Kroger Marketplace opening Friday in the Tomball area is the latest example of one of the hottest trends in the grocery business - all-in-one shopping where apparel and asparagus go hand in hand, where shoppers can fill their carts with milk and cheese or bangles and tennies. This store has not just the latest in organic foods but also three fitting rooms.

"All of retail is a mishmash today in the minds of consumers," Kit Yarrow, professor of business and psychology at Golden Gate University at San Francisco, said of the phenomenon. "You can go online to Amazon and get crackers, a bra and golf clubs - that's the new mentality."

Big-box discounters like Target and Wal-Mart have been adding grocery shelves for years, and in the Houston region Kroger has built four other Marketplace stores since 2009 with expanded selections of housewares, sofas and bedding, kitchen appliances and toys.

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But the new Tomball area store is the first local Kroger Marketplace to sell apparel and shoes; so will the next one, at Barker Cypress and Tuckerton, when it opens later this year.

Leonard Moore, a district manager who was in the Tomball store on Tuesday, said he has had trouble keeping enough apparel products on the shelves at the Kroger Marketplace that opened early this year in the Dallas suburb of Forney, the first in Texas to carry clothing and shoes. Women's casual clothing sells particularly well, Moore said.

Yarrow predicts the strategy could work, once people get accustomed to thinking of Kroger as more than a place to buy meat, cereal and coffee.

"I don't know if they'll ever start going to the grocery store because they think they have the cutest outfits there," she said. "But it will make customers more engaged in the entire shopping process."

Terrie Ellerbee, associate editor of the Shelby Report, a grocery trade publication, agreed that the chain has a track record of making good business decisions.

"Kroger is a smart retailer," Ellerbee said, "and it knows that shoppers are still looking for value. And convenience comes in a close second."

Plus, she added, "Kroger has experience selling clothing. Its Fred Meyer division up in the Pacific Northwest has long sold clothes, jewelry and electronics alongside groceries."

The Tomball area store at 24350 Kuykendahl will devote 5,000 square feet to apparel and shoes, from women's linen loafers and men's dress slacks to Easter dresses for the girls.

But it is still very much a grocery store. The overwhelming majority of its 124,000 square feet is devoted to food.

The chain's consumer affairs manager, Joy Partain, said the store opening Friday will feature a Murray's Cheese Shop, one of the largest natural-food sections in Texas and a variety of fitness bars, supplements and nutrition drinks.

Future Marketplace stores in the area will likely focus on apparel instead of furniture, Partain said. Ellerbee said that might make sense because clothes and shoes take up less floor space and likely will move faster, while still having a higher profit margin than groceries.

Kroger's move to apparel mirrors the transition Target began 20 years ago. That's when the first SuperTarget offering grocery items opened in Omaha, Neb.